SIPP Public Policy Papers 22

Abstract:

When Canada’s Minister of the Environment, David Anderson, notified the United Nations
(UN) on 17 December 2002 that Canada would ratify the UN Framework Agreement on Climate
Change, known best as the Kyoto Protocol, Canada joined nearly 100 countries to do so. Together,
these countries represented about 40 per cent of the 1990 emissions, still some distance from the 55
per cent threshold necessary for the UN Agreement to come into effect. A day earlier, then Prime
Minister Jean Chretien had signed the 1997 treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions at a ceremony
in Ottawa after the House of Commons had approved the treaty. Because the United States, which
is responsible for more than 36 per cent of all emissions, had rejected the treaty, there was great
hope that Russia would soon ratify the protocol. Once Russia became a signatory to the
agreement, it and all other signatories would have committed themselves to reducing greenhouse
gas emissions to six per cent below 1990 rates by 2012. In Canada, that necessitated a reduction of
20 to 30 per cent from current levels. However, Russia, like the United States and Australia, has
not yet ratified the Kyoto Protocol and, without Russia, which accounts for 17.4 per cent of
emissions, the Protocol may be in serious trouble.

Description:

Weathering the Political and Environmental
Climate of the Kyoto Protocol